Atmospheric Measurement Techniques www.atmos-meas-tech.net 1867-1381 1867-8548 3 3 2010 10.5194/amt-3-655-2010 http://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/3/655/2010/ http://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/3/655/2010/amt-3-655-2010.html http://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/3/655/2010/amt-3-655-2010.pdf 655 669 2010-06-07 Ground-based observations for the validation of contrails and cirrus detection in satellite imagery H. Mannstein hermann.mannstein@dlr.de A. Brömser L. Bugliaro Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany UBIMET GmbH, 1200 Wien, Austria Contrails and additional cirrus clouds caused by air traffic have a potential warming effect due to their optical properties and their location in the upper troposphere. The effect of contrails is directly related to their coverage and optical properties, which both can be derived from satellite observations. However, considerable local and global uncertainties remain, as detection limits and efficiency are still unknown. A six months time series of the occurrence of high-level clouds and contrails was analysed visually using an all-sky camera situated at Oberpfaffenhofen (Southern Germany). It shows a contrail occurrence of 21% (fraction of time with visible contrails during one hour) which is nearly constant over daytime and a cirrus occurrence that increases from 27% in the morning to 48% in the evening, suggesting a possible influence of air traffic or, more probably, convective cloud formation. Furthermore, we compared selected all-sky camera images with data of the satellite instruments NOAA/AVHRR and MSG/SEVIRI. As expected, the fraction of contrails visible and detectable in satellite images depends strongly on their width. 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